Iranian authorities should immediately release eight environmental activists detained for six months unless they can immediately charge them with recognizable crimes and produce evidence to justify their continued detention, Human Rights Watch said today. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence organization has arrested at least 50 environmental activists across the country since January 2018.

On July 31, in an open letter addressed to senior officials, the families of the eight environmentalists said their loved ones are being held in Tehran's Evin prison without access to a lawyer. They asked the authorities to visit these detainees in prison to hear the circumstances of their detention. The environmentalists are Houman Jokar, Sepideh Kashani, Niloufar Bayani, Amirhossein Khaleghi, Sam Rajabi, Taher Ghadirian, Abdolreza Kouhpayeh, and Morad Tahbaz.

"Six months on, the Iranian authorities still haven't provided a shred of evidence to justify locking up these environmentalists," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The authorities should be praising these activists for addressing Iran's dire environmental problems, but the country's hard-line security institutions rarely miss an opportunity to punish independent civic initiative."

On January 24 and 25, the IRGC intelligence organization arrested several members of a local environmental group, the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, accusing them of using environmental projects as a cover to collect classified strategic information. It is unclear what classified strategic information these individuals could potentially collect, as the foundation works to conserve and protect Iran's flora and fauna, including the Asiatic Cheetah, an endangered species found in the country. On February 10, the family of Kavous Seyed Emami, a well-known environmentalist and professor arrested as part of this crackdown, reported he had died in detention under unknown circumstances. Iranian authorities have claimed Seyed Emami committed suicide, but they have not conducted an impartial investigation into his death.

On July 31, Mohammad Hossein Aghasi, a lawyer for the detained sons of the Rajabi and Ghadirian families, told Human Rights Watch the prosecutor has not allowed him to represent his clients and has not given him a chance to read their cases.

Under article 48 of Iran's 2014 criminal procedure, detainees charged with various offenses, including national or international security crimes, political and media crimes, must select their counsel from a pre-approved pool of lawyers selected by Iran's judiciary during the investigation. In June, the judiciary published a list that included only 20 lawyers allowed to represent people charged with national security crimes in Tehran province. The list did not include any women or human rights lawyers.

On July 30, a source with close knowledge of the cases who preferred to remain anonymous told Human Rights Watch the families have not been able to get any information about the charges or evidence the authorities have brought against the detained environmentalists. The source confirmed that during a June visit with their detained relatives, families noticed one detainee's tooth was broken and another had bruises and scars on his nose.

On May 9, Mahmoud Sadeghi, a member of parliament from Tehran, tweeted that the intelligence minister, Mahmoud Alavi, said explicitly there is no evidence that suggests the detained activists are spies. On May 22, Issa Kalantari, the head of Iran's Environmental Institution, said during a speech at a bio-diversity conference that the government had formed a committee consisting of the ministers of intelligence, interior, and justice and the president's legal deputy, and that they had concluded there was no evidence to suggest those detained are spies. Kalantari added that the committee said the environmentalists should be released.

Since Seyed Emami's death, Revolutionary Guard authorities have raided his house several times, repeatedly harassed his family, and banned Maryam Mombeini, his wife, from leaving the country.

On February 15, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) 20:30 program aired a video that accused Seyed Emami of using surveys of the endangered Asiatic cheetahs as a pretext for spying in strategically sensitive areas. The program did not present any evidence and violated due process guarantees, Human Rights Watch said. On July 16, Payam Derafshan, the lawyer of Seyed Emami family, told the Iranian Labor News Agency the family had filed a complaint against the news program.

On May 9, Mojgan Jamshidi, a journalist who covers environmental issues, tweeted that authorities had arrested more than 40 local environmental activists in the city of Bander-e-Lengeh, in Hormozgan province in southern Iran. They have been released from detention, two sources confirmed to Human Rights Watch.

"The country is facing serious economic and environmental challenges, but authorities are throwing the very people who could be part of the solution in jail," Whitson said.

The Rouhani administration engaged in extensive internet surveillance and interference throughout the year, announcing in January that more than 130 Facebook pages had been closed and more than 30 internet users detained in connection with their online activity.

What is the correlation between the online and offline behaviour of Iranian citizens and the likelihood of their arrest in Iran today? Answering this question is the main focus of this new ARTICLE 19 report.

Free Expression & the Law:

More from Free Expression & the Law

In its report, the Center examines Bahrain's laws and legislation restricting the freedom of press work and shows the extent of its non-conformity with the international treaties, covenants and agreements. The report also documents violations of media workers since the popular protests beginning in 2011.

Laws passed since Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency in May 2012 have dramatically strengthened the Russian authorities’ control over the flow of information online and offline. Much of this crackdown has been fuelled by Russia’s foreign policy, in particular its role in the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine and its armed intervention in Syria.

The report is based on the study of Bahraini laws and legislation related to the prosecution of civilians in military courts and shows the compatibility of Bahraini laws with the International Bill and international laws.

Civil society leaders in Egypt are urging the U.S. government to continue to condition and withhold military aid to Egypt until the Egyptian government makes meaningful reforms to its human rights practices.

BCHR analyses how the Bahraini judiciary uses the language of 'anti-terrorism' law to justify suppressing dissent. They also do a comparative study of the relevant local and international anti-terror legislation, and the extent to which Bahrain is in line with international law, international conventions and human rights treaties.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) accuses the Eritrean government of a complete denial of reality in its first-ever report to the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and announces that it has submitted an alternative "shadow report" with a much darker assessment of the state of press freedom in Eritrea.

The general trend over the past 10 years has been bleak, with an overall negative trajectory for press freedom. The major turning point was the election of Xi Jinping as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China in 2012 and President of China in 2013.

In 2014, Cameroon enacted a broad anti-terror law as part of its effort to counter the extremist group Boko Haram, but authorities are using it to arrest and threaten local journalists who report on the militants or unrest in the country’s English-speaking regions.

Since 2013, law enforcement authorities in Bangladesh have illegally detained scores of opposition activists and held them in secret without producing them before courts, as the law requires. In most cases, those arrested remain in custody for weeks or months before being formally arrested or released. Others however are killed in so-called armed exchanges, and many remain “disappeared.”

This study examines the existence of criminal defamation and insult laws in the territory of the 57 participating States of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). In doing so, it offers a broad, comparative overview of the compliance of OSCE participating States’ legislation with international standards and best practices in the field of defamation law and freedom of expression.

READ AND DOWNLOADThis study analyses current trends in civil defamation and privacy cases in Hungary involving the media and summarises key challenges for freedom of the press and expression. Written by Hungarian media lawyer Bea Bodrogi, the study examined 250 court decisions related to civil protection of 'personality rights', an area in Hungarian law that includes defamation, privacy and personal image.

Freedom Forum has issued a review of Nepal's National Mass Communications Policy 2016. Among others, FF says the policy fails to articulate constitutional provisions relating to freedom of expression and mass communication. The policy, they said, also seems to promote centralided regulation, instead of self-regulation.

The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in 2016 maintained its control over all public affairs and punished those who challenged its monopoly on power. Authorities restricted basic rights, including freedom of speech, opinion, association, and assembly. All religious groups had to register with the government and operate under surveillance. Bloggers and activists faced daily police harassment and intimidation, and were subject to arbitrary house arrest, restricted movement, and physical assaults.

Malaysia's human rights situation continued to deteriorate in 2016, with human rights defenders, activists, political opposition figures, and journalists facing harassment and politically motivated prosecution. Those criticising the administration of Prime Minister Najib Razak or commenting on the government's handling of the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) corruption scandal have been particular targets.

Authorities continue to use sedition and criminal defamation laws to prosecute citizens who criticise government officials or oppose state policies. In a blow to free speech, the government in 2016 argued before the Supreme Court in favour of retaining criminal penalties for defamation. The court upheld the law.

IFEX publishes original and member-produced free expression news and reports. Some member content has been edited by IFEX. We invite you to contact [email protected] to request permission to reproduce or republish in whole or in part content from this site.

Get more stories like this

Sign up for our newsletters and get the most important free expression news delivered to your inbox.